Shelob's Children
by Varia Lectio
Summary: Whatever became of Shelob after her encounter with Frodo and Samwise?


Shelob's Children.

Rating: PG-13, for violence and death.

Summary: Whatever happened to Shelob after the attack of Samwise Gamgee?

Betaing: Thanks goes to Araniell, elaryn, ILamEdhellen, KellyQ, and others who've chimed in with helpful thoughts and suggestions.

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It was a bitter spike upon which she had thrust herself.

Dragging one leg, blinded in one eye, Shelob the Great, Terror of the pass of Cirith Ungol, hauled her great bulk toward safety. Ignoring the shouts of the little prey-creature behind her, she fled, clacking her jaws together in involuntary spasms of terror.

Shelob was sorely wounded, and as she crawled toward her deepest and darkest chamber she wondered as to the extent of her injuries. She was dismayed at what she found. The eye was blind, and would remain so forever, even if the wound were to heal. Her hairy, clawed foot had been nearly split in two, and the raw stump was painful to walk upon.

But it was the belly wound that was the worst of all. It bled greenish gore onto the stones, and Shelob wheezed as she lowered her body to the ground.

Curling her limbs about her body, the great spider slept in the deepness of her lair.

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She awoke some time later. How much later, she did not know, nor did she care. Days and weeks, months and years, were for the other beings, the small, scurrying creatures who existed merely to provide her with food.

Shelob squatted on her bowed legs and round belly, resting a bit longer before she gathered the will to move. She first tested her weight on her maimed foot, and stretched her stiff limbs. At last she stood, though her foot was still only half-healed, and would not fully support her.

Her wounded underside, she discovered, had not healed at all. The puncture wound was deep, and now it stank with a gangrenous odor. Fetid blood oozed from it as scabs cracked and flaked away.

Shelob hissed, lifting her head. Her eyes flashed like dark jewels.

She was hungry.

Lifting herself up, she crawled out of the chamber, seeking prey. Wandering from corridor to cob-webbed corridor, from cavern to bone-strewn cavern, however, she found nothing edible; merely the cast-off, mummified husks of her previous victims. Hissing, she turned aside and went to a small, dark chamber that she had not entered in many years.

This chamber was filled with Shelob's eggs.

Long, long ago, so long ago that even Shelob's ancient memory could barely recall it, a male spider had come to her lair. He had entered in, and she had first hissed at the intruder and driven him away. A while later, he had returned, however, and had laid a paralyzed orc at her feet. She had taken the offering, but again she had driven him out. A second time, he had returned, again offering an orc to her, and this time she had accepted him. They had mated, again and again over a span of years, and Shelob had laid eggs in many chambers of her caverns.

After their last mating, Shelob had decided that she was tiring of the male's presence, and so she had killed and consumed him. Their last clutch of eggs had been placed in a small dark chamber.

Now, she returned to that chamber, thinking only of her greedy hunger. She would eat these eggs now, for they had never hatched, and so many of her offspring had already survived that more offspring were of no concern.

But as she stepped into the chamber, Shelob knew that something was wrong.

The egg sacs, once smooth and full, now lay empty. Broken strands of spider silk were strewn about the ground. In a corner, there were a few small corpse-husks of infant spiders who had not been able to escape their stronger, more ravenous brethren.

Shelob clacked her pincers in alarm. The eggs had hatched. When had they hatched?

There was a clicking of tiny pincers and skittering of little claws in the distance. The sound echoed down the corridors, and grew louder and louder.

Shelob pulled out of the egg-chamber, and fled, scraping her belly-wound and dragging her maimed limb. She left a trail of foul-smelling gore behind her.

A small spider leapt upon her from above. She reared up suddenly, crushing her offspring into the ceiling. She felt its tender carapace crack, felt its blood and organs being mashed into the rocks, but she also felt its stinging beak pierce her skin as she drove the body against the stone.

Shelob pulled away, and ran, scurrying for an exit. Any exit, even one into the harsh world of light and wind which she had fled from so long ago, would be her salvation now. . .

More spiders. They surrounded her, now. She had taken a wrong turn in her panic, and they were upon her.

They crawled over her with lightning swiftness, their small, sharp claws digging into her skin, putting out her eyes as they swarmed over her face. In panic, she reared up, crushing dozens of them with each blow against the ceiling. She flailed with her fore-claws, striking at them, knocking them away-- but only for a moment.

She could not stem their onrushing attack. Still more of them darted under her body as she reared, delivering stinging bites with their razor-edged jaws. Their silk tangled on her legs, holding her fast. Their poison splattered the floor as they bit her again and again. . .

Shelob collapsed, succumbing to their venom.

Hundreds of small pale spiders swarmed about her, winding her great body in a shroud of spider-silk, and the only sounds that could be heard in the Pass of Cirith Ungol were, for a while, the hard chitinous clicks of their jaws and claws as the children of Shelob the Great jostled one another at their feast.

The End.


End file.
